Chicken Parmigiana

I will admit that I've never been a real fan of the chicken parmigiana. In restaurants it's always oily and has too much cheese, plus they throw it on top of chips/fries, which go soggy! Not my idea of a good meal.

Andrew, my husband, however - loves it. So I thought I'd give it a go.
We had enough for 3 dinner serves, plus some leftovers for Andrew for work tomorrow. Probably if you want enough for 4 full dinner serves, use a bit extra chicken.

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
4 slices bread
garlic
1 onion, diced
2 cans diced tomatoes
italian herbs - fresh or dried
sugar or ketchup
jar of plain tomato pasta sauce (eg dolmio)
vegies to serve with
pasta/spaghetti
cheese
2 eggs


Slice the chicken thinly into 2 or 3 slices. Even is good, but no matter if they aren't. Whiz up your bread in the blender to make breadcrumbs and add a bit of garlic at the end. You can also add some parmesan cheese, but I couldn't find mine! Throw your eggs in a bowl and beat them up so they are nicely mixed with a fork.
Dip your chicken into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs. Coat them well.

Put them aside - in the fridge is good here.


In a saucepan, fry up the onion and some garlic. Then add your cans of tomatoes. I also added half a jar of dolmio tomato pasta sauce. This isn't necessary but helped give it a nice round flavour. Let it simmer for a while, and add some mixed Italian herbs. Also add a squirt of ketchup or a teaspoon of sugar. This will help the sauce not be too bitter as it can get from lots of tomatoes.

Once your sauce is cooked and has simmered for a while, get a frying pan and coat it with a decent amount of oil. I used olive oil but vegetable oil is fine. Get it to a good heat so you can shallow fry the chicken. Not too hot so as to burn them though!
Fry the chicken pieces for a few minutes each side. If they aren't fully cooked, that's ok as they will be going in the oven. Place each cooked piece on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Drizzle some sauce and a sprinkling of cheese on each one. I used a tiny bit each of parmesan (yeah, I managed to find it), regular cheese and mozzerella. Don't use too much cheese you don't want it oily and icky.

Whack that in the oven at 180C for 15 mins or so.
Cook your spaghetti according to packet directions, which usually takes around 10 mins. Drain it and stir the sauce through.

Serve on a plate with a nice amount of pasta, with the chicken on top and some greens around the side. I used green beans and carrots tonight.

Sorry I forgot to take a photo, but it was delicious!!!!!!!

Then we had chocolate pudding for dessert with fudge sauce and that was awesome!!!

yummy pretty cake

Well I saw this cake here and I was inspired. The original cake was an almond cake with cherry filling but I didn't like the idea of that, so I made it choc/vanilla/choc with the same icing.

I used a packet mix, just a cheap home brand one. 2 x choc and 1 x vanilla. I think any plain cake that isn't too strong a flavour will work well - from scratch or from a packet mix. Vanilla and choc worked well, probably mud - choc and vanilla would work well too but may be a bit strong in flavour. That's why I like the generic brands as they aren't too strong.

Anyway, make 3 cakes of the same size and let them cool.

Trim the top of the cakes so they can stack on top of each other.

Get your cake stand and put 1 choc cake in the middle. Add some Nestle Caramel Top n Fill as the middle layer, then add the vanilla, more caramel and then the 2nd choc cake.
If you can't get Caramel Top n Fill, use a tin of condensed milk , take off the label, and put in a saucepan filled with water. Make sure the tin is covered. Boil this for 4 hours, let it cool and open it. Voila, you have caramel sauce!

Meanwhile you need to make the buttercream icing!

Whip 4 egg whites in a mixer till light and fluffy. Then mix 1 cup sugar with half a cup of water and heat on the stove and stir till it's dissolved. Once dissolved, let it boil for approx 5 mins till it thickens a little and becomes syruppy. I don't have a candy thermometer, so that's how I did it. Otherwise, till it gets to approx 240F.

Turn on the mixer again and whip the eggwhites, while slowly drizzling in the candy mixture. Do it nice and slowly and it should partially cook the egg from the heat! Once it's all mixed in, add 1 1/2 cups of butter (not margarine) at room temperature, 1tbsp at a time. Mix on medium-high till it's all mixed in then put up to high. It may curdle and look a bit like ricotta cheese, but mix it on high and it will go nice and creamy after a few minutes. You will need to be mixing for about 15 mins all up probably - so an electric stand mixer is best!

Once that's done, ice your cake neatly and wipe off any spills from your platter.

Then you decorate it!
I bought some royal/white icing from the shop and coloured it with food colouring and then cut it out with the cookie cutter. I left them overnight in cupcake trays so they could keep their shape. 2 days is better time to dry as overnight had them dry but soft. Still yummy though.

Decorate to your hearts content!!!

Freakin' awesome rainbow layer cake!!!

Well I saw this cake on a blog online and I just couldn't resist, I had to make it! :-)

So I made it my own and this is how I did it.

2 packets of butter cake mix (or vanilla or lemon, or anything that has no colour to it really).
Lots of icing (I made cream cheese icing)
Smarties, m&ms or 100s&1000s to decorate
Red, blue, yellow and green food colouring
Strawberry jam
Whipping cream

Make up your packet cake mix in a bowl, but before you do, weigh the bowl and remember the weight! When made, measure out 1/6 of your mixture into a smaller bowl and add red food colouring.
Pour into a cake tin and bake - there won't be much mixture - I used a 23cm tin and it was just enough mixture to cover the bottom of the tin. It only takes about 15 mins to bake or so.
When cooked, put on a cooling rack and repeat with orange (red and yellow), yellow, green, blue and purple (blue and red) food colouring. You will then have 6 cakes. If you have 2 tins, you can obviously cook 2 at a time - but make sure they are the same size tin!!!

When the cakes are all cooked and cooled, then you layer them. I started with red on the bottom, and spread some warmed strawberry jam on each layer, and then some whipped cream. Be careful how much you use, as it is a VERY sweet cake - less is best. Also don't get the cream too close to the edges as you don't want it to squelch out.



Layer them all up, and then cover the entire thing with icing, and decorate. I used a cream cheese icing, and had it slightly runny, so it just oozed down the sides of the cake - easy! But a thick harder icing will work just as well.

I decorated with some smarties and popped in the fridge.

Warm Chicken Pasta Salad

Found this recipe on taste.com.au and changed it quite a bit.
Here tis!

Cook 375g pasta (spirals, shells, bow ties etc) according to packet and drain.

Chop up 4 spring onions (scallions) and 1 red capsicum (bell pepper).

Lightly fry onions in a bit of olive oil - add 2 cloves minced garlic, and then the capsicum.

Fry for 5 mins till all are tender. Add 1 punnet of sliced grape tomatoes (I sliced each tomato into 4) and 1/2tsp minced red chilli. Cook another 2 mins or so. Add 300ml thickened cream and let it simmer for 3 mins until slightly thickened. Stir occasionally.

Place cooked pasta in a big bowl and add 1/2 a diced bbq chicken (alternatively pan fry 2 chicken breasts and then slice up thinly) and a few cups of baby english spinach, roughly chopped.

Pour cream and onion mixture over the top of the pasta and mix together.

Serve warm.
Serves 4-6 as a main meal.

Amazing salad!

I made this awesome salad tonight.
Ingredients:
Torn up coral (?) lettuce
Torn up baby spinach
1 sliced red capsicum
1 sliced orange (or yellow, or 2 red) capsicum
2 thinly sliced carrots
2 mushrooms thinly sliced
1 lebanese cucumber, sliced
cherry tomatoes
fetta cheese, diced

Throw all the salad together and toss.

Then throw a nice piece of tender steak in a pan or on the bbq and cook to your liking. Medium well is how we had it. When cooked, slice your steak and scatter over the salad.

Serve in pasta bowls with some crispy noodles on top!

Dressing:
Found this amazing recipe on allrecipes.com for this honey balsamic dressing. I changed it a bit so here goes:

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 small onion
1tbsp soy sauce
1tbsp white sugar
1 cloves of garlic
3tbsp honey
1inch wide piece of red capsicum
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (evoo)


Chuck everything in a blender and whizz until thick.

YUMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Inspiration

Well I went to see Julie and Julia last night at the movies, and I was inspired!

I have Beef Bourguignon in the oven at the moment!

If it's a success, I will post pics an the recipe. I am using Julia Child's recipe. It's rather time consuming, but man it smells divine!

Corned Beef!

Well I had a request for my recipe for corned beef on facebook - so here goes.

Head on down to your butcher, or supermarket and grab a piece of corned silverside. Make sure it's the corned stuff, not the regular, otherwise it might not taste so nice! Alternatively, I also like corned brisket. This is often a little bit cheaper and just a different cut of beef, and has a more subtle flavour IMO. Both are nice, it just comes to personal preference. The silverside is usually easier to carve though, as the brisket is generally rolled.

Anyways get a piece of the size you want. When you get home, plop it in a nice big pot that is deep enough for you to cover the meat with water. You can rinse the meat if it's a bit gooey. Fill the pot with water so it's just covering the meat, and add the following. An onion, a carrot (both halved is fine), a couple of bayleaves, a swig of vinegar (not too much, just a tablespoon or two) and about the same of brown sugar. Also a couple of cloves don't go astray.
Now you can kinda put whatever you want in the water, but mostly you need the vinegar and the sugar. Don't over vinegar it or your meat will taste just like vinegar. Blech! Most corned beef that you buy already wrapped will have a recipe on the wrapper, so that's just my version of all the ones I've seen.

Alternatively, you can put in a 1.25Litre bottle of ginger beer! Believe me, this is DELICIOUS! If you do the ginger beer, forget all the other ingredients, apart from say the onion and carrot. Chuck in the ginger beer, and then top up with water to how much you need.

Other options to add to your pot include a stick of celery and a potato or two. I don't bother with these though.

So pop the pot on the stove, and bring to the boil. Then turn it down and let it simmer for a few hours. I think the story goes, like 1 hour per kilo plus 30 mins or whatever. Anyways 2-3 hours for a 2ish kilo piece of beef will be fine. Tonight I had 1.5kg and it cooked for just over 2 hours. It's simmering the whole time, so it's going to be totally cooked through nice and early - you want it to get tender and get the flavours from the juices in the pot nice and infused.

If you want to use your slow cooker, this is an easy thing to make - pop it all in, throw it on low or auto for around 8 hours, and voila! Tender corned beef!

Now to serve, slice up your meat in nice chunks, and then I like to steam up some cabbage, mash some potatoes, and throw in a few carrots (you can pop these in the pot at the end if you want, although I don't bother) and serve with white sauce.

White sauce: See my recipe for white sauce. If you like yours with a bit of a bite, add a spoonful of dijon mustard - or your favourite mustard. Easy peasy!

Leftovers are great on sandwiches!